Goodbye, Mr. Stork

The Kinsey reports and sex education for tots

For the last several decades, “sex”, “sexual orientation”, and “gender” have been understood as related, but different. The usual explanation is that one’s sex is a matter of biology, gender is the imprint of cultural patterns on biological sex, and sexual orientation is best understood as a psychological trait. For now, I’ll set aside the flaws in this common knowledge, because I’m writing about a time when “sex” included all three aspects: physical, cultural, and behavioral. In the child care literature, this was seen in the inclusion of  female “coyness” as a developmental milestone along with learning to drink from a cup. When popular advice writers wrote about “sex education” in infancy and early childhood, they meant the entire interconnected system: not only the “birds and the bees” but sex identity, and sex role socialization. Their interest in sexual orientation reflects the then-common belief that anything other than heterosexuality was a deviation from the norm, rooted in psychological disturbance of some kind. 

For the first half of the twentieth century, there had already been an unprecedented focus on the sexual development of children, with increasing attention to relative importance of  “nature and nurture”. Since biological sex (nature)  was considered to be well-understood, attention was shifting to the cultural and psychological forces that “nurtured” sex roles and sexual behavior. The goal: determining the best ways to raise boys and girls to be “normal”, sexually healthy men and women. What strikes me as I read the popular literature is how much the experts were basing their advice on research that was still in its infancy. 

For the children of the post-war baby boom, “The Kinsey Reports” were the sex experts du jour. Their books  “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), were widely read and often quoted by childcare experts in popular magazines and newspaper columns. Kinsey’s research reinforced Freud’s contention that infants and small children experienced sexual sensations, which was normal and natural. The 1953 work on female sexual behavior argued that little girls as well as boys enjoyed sexual pleasure. Between the Kinseys and Modern Woman: The Lost Sex (1947) by Marynia Farnham and Ferdinand Lundberg, parental anxiety once focused on raising manly sons spread to their daughters, who also needed guidance and instruction to become well-adjusted women, wives and mothers.

This led to a complete alteration in the way that information about sex and sex differences should be communicated to the youngest children. An important part of learning their appropriate sexual identities was learning about their bodies in “wholesome”, positive ways. Parents should “accept that voiding feels good” and not promote disgust or bodily shame in the process of toilet training. They were advised that the small child should see other children naked, so they would notice the differences. Helping with a sibling’s diaper change or sharing a bathtub were important learning opportunities. How else would they notice the genital differences so vital to their own sense of identity?

Once we were past infancy, and talking and learning more vocabulary, our sex education could begin in earnest. No more storks and cabbage patches. Preschoolers needed to know where babies really came from. Well, perhaps not the whole story; pregnancy and childbirth were appropriate for the nursery school set, but not “insemination”, or any graphic details about “the part that's embarrassing”, meaning the father’s role or actual intercourse. Sex educator Helen Reid, in “A handbook on the sex education of children”, advised parents to use real names for genitals, and avoid baby talk for bathroom actives (urinate, not “tinkle”). As far as I can tell from talking to other people my age, even parents who were doctors and nurses resorted to euphemisms in their own homes.

Many authors were concerned that the facts of life might be upsetting. Little boys were prone to fear of castration, or developing a sense of alienation from the baby-making process (bad for their futures as fathers). Girls would be upset about not having penises. The solution was to explain girls’ anatomy clearly and to underscore how special and awesome their roles as mothers would be. As Benjamin Spock wrote, “Just explain what the girl has and that the difference is natural.” If girl needs “extra reassurance”, it will help her to know that when she is older she can grow babies inside her and “have breasts with which to nurse them. That’s a thrilling idea at 3 or 4.” (As a former little girl, I can’t remember that particular thrill, but for now I’ll take Spock at his word.)

Masturbation was natural, although children should learn not to do it in public. Self-exploration and pleasure was necessary in order for youngsters to eventually arrive at the mature, genital stage of sexuality and not get stalled at the oral or anal stages (believed to be a sign of homosexual tendencies). A certain (undefined) amount of cross-gender play was also part of normal sexual identity development. The child under four who showed no interest at all in sex-appropriate toys and activities should arouse parental concern, but otherwise, “Boys may play with dolls, girls with boyish toys.”

The key to successful sex education at this age was well-informed moderation, attuned to the child’s unique personality. This would have been excellent advice in a culture that could talk about sex openly and frankly. But this was 1950s America, where married couples on television slept in twin beds. Unsurprisingly, the experts couldn’t even follow their own advice, mixing a bit of progressive advice with a dash of dire yet vague warnings. For example, “playing doctor” in early years is normal, as long as it is not “too much”. Or this, from another article: “Give the child privacy, unless there are danger signs”, which are not described. In Gesell and Ilg’s more erudite parlance, “The greatest source of serious deviations in this field of personal-social behavior is the over sensitive child in combination with the overzealous parent. This leads to over awareness on both sides.” Fathers and mothers were reminded that children learned more than information about sex from their parents; they also observed and mimicked their behavior, absorbing whatever neuroses their parents had about their own sexual identities. Unresolved adult anxieties about everything from sexual performance to pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, may “destroy their [children’s] ability to adjust to marriage later if they grow to believe that sex is dirty or dangerous.”

No pressure, Mom and Dad!

Next week

Learning to be a girl: The syllabus and the dress code.

For more about the Kinsey Reports, see the PBS.org article “Kinsey in the News”.